NOSTRADAMUS
AND THE NEW PROPHECY ALMANACS
NEWS-IN-DEPTH

THE VALENTINE'S DAY SUICIDE PARTY: Man
accused of trying to set up mass Valentine's Day suicide pact
involving 32 women, 5 children, and himself

.

Man Sent
to Hospital in Suicide Party Plan

The Associated
Press

June 21, 2006
3:21 PM US/Eastern

KLAMATH FALLS,
Ore.

A man who tried
to organize a Valentine's Day mass suicide has been sentenced to
up to 20 years in a state mental hospital.

Gerald Krein
Jr., 27, had been charged with solicitation to commit murder
after allegedly forming a Yahoo chat room to organize
"Suicide Party 2005," asking women to hang themselves
naked on Valentine's Day.

Krein was
arrested Feb. 9, 2005, and was taken to a state hospital in
October after a psychiatrist determined he suffered from "a
myriad of mental health disorders."

Prosecutor Ed
Caleb said Krein could be released early. "He will stay
there until they are convinced he is no longer a threat to the
community," Caleb said Tuesday.

A woman
concerned that children might be harmed alerted authorities to
the suicide plot. Detectives found six women who expressed
interest, including a few who were mothers, but they denied
planning to murder their children.

Coordinator
of suicide party found guilty, insane

6/21/2006, 10:59
a.m. PT

The Associated
Press

KLAMATH FALLS,
Ore. (AP)  A Klamath Falls man who tried to organize a
Valentine's Day suicide party and was charged with solicitation
to commit murder has been sentenced to the state mental hospital.

A Klamath County
Circuit Court judge on Tuesday sentenced Gerald Krein Jr., 27, to
up to 20 years in the custody of the Oregon Psychiatric Security
Review Board. Under state law, suspects found guilty "except
for insanity" are sent to the State Hospital rather than
jail or prison.

In 2005, Krein
formed a Yahoo chat room to organize "Suicide Party
2005," asking women to hang themselves naked on
Valentine's Day. But a woman concerned that children
might be harmed alerted authorities.

Klamath County
Sheriff Tim Evinger said detectives found six women who
expressed interest, including a few with
children, but those women denied planning a murder of
their children. They included women from Virginia,
Missouri, Georgia and Canada.

Krein was
arrested Feb. 9, 2005 and indicted on Valentine's Day. He was
taken to the state hospital in October after a psychiatrist
determined he suffered from "a myriad of mental health
disorders."

Klamath County
District Attorney Ed Caleb said Krein will remain in custody and
be supervised and evaluated daily. He could be released early
depending on his mental status, Caleb said. "He will stay
there until they are convinced he is no longer a threat to the
community," Caleb said.

Valentines
Day suicide man tried to entice women for years

Irish Examiner

15/02/05

AN Oregon man who used an
internet chat room to try to set up a mass suicide on
Valentines Day had been trying to persuade women for at
least five years to engage in sex acts with him and then kill
themselves, a sheriff said. Gerald Krein is charged with
solicitation to commit murder and prosecutors are expected to add
an attempted manslaughter charge today, said Klamath County
Sheriff Tim Evinger.

Combing through old chat room
records, investigators discovered that Krein had been trying to
entice women across North America to commit suicide as far back
as 2000, Mr Evinger said. Krein told investigators he'd been in
touch with 32 women, authorities said.

Krein, 26, was arrested on
Wednesday at his mother's home in the southern Oregon town of
Klamath Falls. He had moved to Oregon about a year ago from the
Sacramento, California, area to take care of his ailing father.

"The common theme is that
these were women who were vulnerable, who were depressed. He
invited them to engage in certain sexual acts with him and then
they were to hang themselves naked from a beam in his
house," the sheriff said. "He was indicating to these
women that he had a beam and that it would hold multiple
people."

Klamath County Prosecutor Ed
Caleb said that because Krein was living in a mobile home while
organising the suicide, the idea of hanging bodies from beams may
indicate the plot was a fantasy. "It's clear that he was
either engaging in some kind of fantasy or he planned for it to
happen somewhere else," Mr Caleb said. No deaths had been
found that were linked to Krein, the sheriff said, but he added
he would not be surprised if someone had killed herself as a
result of Krein's alleged activities.

Detectives learned of the
Valentine's Day plan from a woman in Ontario, Canada, who said
she saw a message in a Yahoo chat room that had "Suicide
Ideology" in the title. Chat room participants supposedly
planned to commit suicide on Valentine's Day, possibly while
logged on with each other. The chat room is no longer active.

The woman told detectives she
was going to take part in the suicide but had second thoughts
when another chat room participant talked about killing her
children before taking her own life.

So far, investigators have
tracked down four of the women Krein was in contact with: the
woman who came forward in Canada and three others living in
Oregon, Missouri and Virginia. "In the Missouri and Virginia
case, he was inviting them to bring their children with
them," said Mr Evinger.

The woman from Oregon shared a
transcript of her online exchange with police. According to a
copy obtained by CNN, the conversation went as follows:

Woman: How did you come up with
the idea of a party? That's pretty creative.

Answer: Just did. So do you want
to join?

Woman: Maybe.

Question: Do you want to hang?

Woman: No, gas.

The most recent chat room began
in December on Yahoo, about the time Krein moved into the mobile
home.

Man's
dark side revealed at suicide party

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 ·
Last updated 12:36 a.m. PT

College senior Jaime Shockman was at home
working on her computer when an instant message popped up at the
bottom of her screen. It was an invitation to die. "Do you
think of suicide?" the stranger asked. "Do you want to
die with others," he went on, according to the instant
message transcript.

Bored and convinced the message
was a joke, the young woman replied. For two hours in December,
she answered questions posed by 26-year-old Gerald Krein, who is
now accused of attempting to lure emotionally fragile women to
his Oregon home for what police are calling a Valentine's Day sex
and suicide party.

It's not clear whether any of
the women he allegedly contacted were sincere about killing
themselves. For her part, Shockman says she engaged Krein in the
conversation as a prank.

"I was convinced it was a
joke," Shockman said, who believes the man picked her out
because her screen name - KillToriSpelling - refers to killing.

The Portland State University
student decided it was something more sinister when he told her
that a mother from Portland was coming to his home in southern
Oregon to commit suicide along with her five kids.

Now, Shockman is one of five
women - from Canada, Georgia, Oregon, Missouri and Virginia - out
of more than two dozen allegedly contacted by Krein who have
identified themselves to police. According to authorities, the
women were invited to the "suicide get-together" at his
house, where they were to hang themselves naked from a beam.

Krein, who was arrested
Wednesday, told investigators he had been in touch with 31 women.
He was indicted Monday while deputies kept watch over his house
to make sure no one arrived to kill themselves. "It was
suggested that they come here, that they hang with him, that they
have a sex party, and if they couldn't come he would certainly
entertain them, doing it over the Internet," Sheriff Tim
Evinger said.

Shockman printed a copy of the
instant message communication - in which he identified himself
first as "Jerry," then as "Gerald Krein" -
and showed it to The Associated Press. She also has shown it to
police.

After he divulged his plan to
commit suicide along with 15 others, Shockman asked him:
"How do you want to die?"

"We was thinking
hanging," he wrote back, according to the transcript.

"All at the same time in
the same place?" she asked.

When he answered yes, she kidded
him that the weight of the bodies would break the structure they
were hung from.

"No," he replied.
"Got a thing built to hold bodies."

He said it was strong enough to
"hold 50" and added he had quit his job at Blockbuster
to plan the party - and build the beam in his house in Klamath
Falls, Ore.

In the final hour, Shockman said
Krein peppered her with questions on how she wanted to die.

Did she want to hold hands with
the other women? Did she want to be blindfolded, or see the
expression on the other women's faces as she died? How high
should her body be above the ground? What did she want to wear?

Krein instructed her not to wear
shoes because the shoes would "weigh you down."

She felt on edge when he asked
her whether she wanted to die in the nude.

But it was when he mentioned
that children were to be involved that she dialed 911.

"One woman is bringing her
kids," he messaged.

"How many kids?" asked
Shockman, from her room plastered with horror movie posters.

"5," he messaged back.

When asked why he wanted to die,
he answered: "hate everything." He asked to see a
picture of her. Shockman sent him to an Oregon newspaper Web site
and sent him to the image of another woman. He rated her a
"10."

According to the transcript, he
said that women hate him.

Then he asked: "Am I a dog
to you?"

Death
pact: The picture gets darker

Monday, February 14, 2005 11:25
AM PST

By DYLAN DARLING
Herald and News - Klamath Falls, Oregon

It was a "lonely and
bored" Klamath Falls man, investigators say, who tried to
lure women from around the country and Canada to come to Southern
Oregon to hang themselves on Valentine's Day.

At the end of a week of working
a case that attracted national and international attention,
Klamath Falls investigators described a scheme in which Gerald
Dean Krein Jr. trolled the Internet for victims. It now sounds
less like a case of mass suicide and more like a a plot to
gratify its perpetrator.

So far, four women have come
forward to tell investigators they'd talked with Krein about the
plan.

Krein wanted women to come to
Klamath Falls where they would "hang naked - choke to death
or break their necks," said Monty Holloway, a sheriff's
detective. The plan wasn't a hoax, he said, but rather a fantasy
Krein was trying to play out.

"He wanted to see these
women hang naked," Holloway said.

A day before Valentine's Day on
Monday, questions remain in the minds of investigators: Did Krein
intend to commit suicide himself? Did he intend suicides to be
committed elsewhere, or just in Klamath Falls? Most important,
who was the woman whose talk about killing her two children
alarmed investigators, and where is she?

Krein, 26, remained jailed
Saturday. Bail was set at $100,000. He's charged with soliciting
murder of two children. A grand jury will consider the case
Monday. Authorities said more charges are possible.

Investigators say Krein worked
at a computer in a mobile home at 2150 Madison Street in the
south suburbs of Klamath Falls to create a Yahoo chat room called
"Suicide Party 2005." Through electronic postings he
told possible participants that 32 people would kill themselves
on Monday, said Klamath County sheriff's detectives.

The four women talking to
investigators are from Portland, Chesterfield County in Virginia,
Unionville, Mo., and King City, a suburb of Toronto.
Investigators said they knew Krein only from the Web contacts.

Authorities around the country
and in Canada are still trying to identify the mother who said
she would kill her kids, and find others who might have planned
to participate.

In the chat room he created in
December Krein bragged about watching on a Web cam as a naked
woman hanged herself, authorities said. In posts and e-mails,
investigators said, Krein wrote that he was turned on by this.

Detectives said Krein lived a
sheltered life and never had a girlfriend. "This kid has
never lived alone, never worked, never been away from mom and
dad," Holloway said.

Krein's father has had cerebral
palsy since the 1990s, and Krein was a caretaker. With his
parents, mother Kaye Krein and father Gerald Sr., Krein moved
from Sacramento about a year ago. They bought the house on
Madison Street Dec. 16 and moved in just over a month ago.

Via the Internet, Krein found
people to connect with through his keyboard. And he found people
interested in his idea of a suicide party on Valentine's Day.
Detectives said Krein controlled access to his chat room and
invited mostly women who said they were contemplating suicide.

"Lonely and bored, that's his reason,"
said John Dougherty, another sheriff's detective.

Detectives said that at one
point, they asked Krein what his mother would do if women started
to arrive at the house: Would she let them in? After pausing,
Krein said no.

It's still unclear whether Krein
planned to participate himself and whether there would have been
more suicides in various locations, broadcast over Web cams, said
Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger.

Authorities said Krein may have
been trying to get a group suicide together since at least 2000.
"It appears he has been very active for quite some time in
trying to entice people into killing themselves," Evinger
said.

The Klamath Falls Police
Department said a tipster told them in September that Krein had
commented about getting together a group to commit suicide, said
Officer Mike Anderson of the city police.

Police officers talked to Krein
about the comment, which was general and had no planned date.
"He admitted to it, but said he was joking," Anderson
said.

Police decided that what Krein
had said wasn't a crime, and they had no evidence he was planning
a crime, Anderson said. There was no Web site, e-mail or other
information available. "No further investigation was done
after the initial contact," Anderson said.

No police report was filed on
the incident, he said.

In their recent work,
investigators have found messages from Krein on a suicide news
group from September 2003, Anderson said. Krein was trying to get
people to come to Sacramento to commit group suicide, Anderson
said. Going back further, investigators have found messages
dating to 2000 in which Krein solicits people to join in group
suicide.

He was putting messages in
"all types of different venues, whether they are chat rooms
or news groups," Evinger said. Krein was "really
preying on vulnerable groups."

Ed Caleb, Klamath County
district attorney, said police hadn't heard of the other
incidents and didn't have enough evidence last fall to get a
search warrant. "There were nowhere near as many facts as
came through this time," Caleb said. "This time we got
specific information. That information wasn't available on the
earlier tip."

That information included the
name of Krein's chat room and more details about his plans, he
said.

The Canadian woman from King
City contacted the sheriff's department on Jan. 19 about the
Valentine's Day suicide party after she learned Krein's plans
included a mother who was going to kill her children, authorities
said. "That's where the lady drew the line," Holloway
said. "She's suicidal, but it went too far. It scared her
when he started talking about children involved."

Krein had given the woman his
address, name and other information in trying to get her to come
to Klamath Falls to kill herself, detectives said.

A detective joined Yahoo using
an alias and entered the chat room to learn more about the plans.
On Tuesday authorities went to talk to Krein. Detectives said
Krein denied everything.

He told them someone must have
hacked into his account and made the chat room. "He said,
'It's not me,' " Holloway said.

Then Krein became agitated,
throwing boxes from his back porch onto his lawn and launching
one of his father's crutches as if it were a javelin, authorities
said. He also smashed a Web cam, saying he would never use it
again.

Sheriff detectives and deputies
returned Wednesday with a search warrant and charges against
Krein. His computer is now in Portland, where FBI agents are
scanning its hard drive. Yahoo officials have helped with the
investigation, and authorities have subpoenas to obtain Krein's
address book and e-mails from his Yahoo account.

In the three-bedroom, one-bath
trailer Krein shared with his parents he had a 10-by-10 computer
room, detectives said. "His home was a cluttered mess,"
Holloway said.

Amid the clutter was a
collection of 4,000 to 5,000 DVDs, including a vast library of
pornographic films downloaded from the Internet, detectives said.
The library included films of sibling incest and "barely
legal" females, they said.

After news of Krein's arrest hit
the national media - including the major television networks,
cable television news channels and large daily newspapers - three
other woman told authorities they had contacted Krein about the
suicide party, detectives said.

A woman from Portland told them
she had been chatting with Krein over the Internet since
Christmas, and he wanted her to come to his house on Valentine's
Day and kill herself. Their conversations had a sexual overtone,
detectives said.

"He had asked her if she
wanted to die naked," Dougherty said.

The woman said she wasn't
interested in actually taking part in the suicide party, but was
just "screwing" with Krein, Dougherty said.

When the woman told Krein she
didn't have a car to get to Klamath Falls, he told her she could
catch a ride with an out-of-state woman who would be driving
through Portland. Authorities said he told the Portland woman
that the woman passing through would have four children, ages 14
to 18, with her and they all planned to hang themselves at the
suicide party Monday.

Like the Canadian woman, the
Portland woman said Krein "went too far" with the idea
of killing children or having them participate in the suicide,
detectives said.

Now authorities are wondering if
anyone is still planning to travel to Klamath Falls to kill
themselves. Agencies handling the investigation locally, the
sheriff's office, city police department, district attorney's
office and the Oregon State Police, met Friday afternoon to
discuss the case and plan how to prevent possible occurrences
Monday in Klamath Falls or elsewhere.

"I would hate to have
someone follow through with this," said Jim Hunter, Klamath
Fall police chief. Whether anyone will commit suicide, he said,
"we have no idea."

Valentine's
Day passes with no one showing up for suicide party -- No party
goers for suicide pact

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore.  Valentine's
Day passed without anyone showing up for a sex and suicide party
allegedly planned by a Klamath Falls man through Internet chat
rooms, the Klamath County sheriff said Tuesday.

Deputies watching over the green
and white mobile home where Gerald D. Krein Jr. lived with his
parents talked to some relatives who came by to see Krein's
mother. But no one was planning suicide with Krein, Sheriff Tim
Evinger said. "We feel the imminent danger has passed,"
Evinger told The Associated Press "The sad part is we don't
know how many people he encouraged. A reasonable person would
dissuade these people."

On Monday, deputies seized three
computers Krein had access to while staying at his cousin's house
in Klamath Falls before moving in with his parents, Evinger said.
The cousin, Joe Best, has been questioned by investigators, but
has not been charged.

Klamath Falls police talked to
Krein at the cousin's house last September after receiving a tip
from a woman in Missouri that Krein was suicidal and might be
trying to recruit people to join him. Krein denied being suicidal
or in touch with the Missouri woman, and suggested someone had
hacked into his Yahoo Internet account, police said. He was not
charged.

A computer Krein used at his
parents' house has been sent to the FBI to see if it will reveal
the names of people he contacted through e-mail, instant
messaging, chat rooms and news groups on the Internet. "It
probably will be an extended investigation," Evinger said.

Klamath Falls police officer Mike
Anderson, who went over Krein's computer before it was sent to
the FBI, said he saw news group postings seeking a group of more
than 20 women to join him for a sex and suicide party, and some
responses questioning why he wanted more than 20. Anyone
interested was asked to e-mail him.

"There were some derogatory
statements made towards him," Anderson said. "There
were a couple people who wanted more information."

Authorities have said Krein told
a woman in Canada that he was in touch with 31 people about a
Valentine's Day party where women, some bringing their children,
would join him for sex, then commit suicide by hanging from the
neck naked.

Based on a tip from that woman,
sheriff's deputies arrested Krein Feb. 9 at his parents' home.

Police say Krein created a Yahoo
chat room called "Suicide Party 2005" to lure women to
carry out his plan. "It was suggested they come here
..." said Evinger. "If they couldn't come, he would
certainly entertain them over the Internet."

He made similar Internet
overtures while living in Texas in 2000 and in Sacramento,
Calif., in 2003, authorities have said. Investigators have heard
from five women who said they were in touch with Krein. The women
are from Virginia, Missouri, Georgia, Portland, and a suburb of
Toronto, Canada.

Defense attorney Evelyn Merritt
said Krein would enter innocent pleas on Thursday when he is
arraigned in Klamath County Circuit Court on indictments alleging
one count of solicitation to commit murder and four counts of
solicitation to commit manslaughter.

"Both he and his mother are
pretty upset," Merritt said. "It's a pretty upsetting
incident."

Krein has been held in the
Klamath County Jail, under special observation and separated from
the other prisoners. Bail was set at $100,000.

Solicitation to commit murder
carries a seven and a half year prison sentence.

Klamath County Prosecutor Ed
Caleb said defense attorneys will probably ask for a psychiatric
evaluation of their client. "We're hoping the defense
counsel has his mental health evaluated so we can tell what we're
dealing with here," Caleb said.

Investigators say the plot was
less about suicide and more about sexual gratification. Sheriff
deputies are looking into Krein's background and the
investigation is ongoing. "There's a ton of work to be done
yet," Caleb said.

Evinger said investigators have
subpoenaed Internet records and are working with the FBI as well
as law enforcement agencies around the country and the Royal
Canadian Mounties. "We expect this to be ongoing," he
said. "It's like peeling back layers of an onion."

The day of Krein's arrest,
deputies seized his computer, a Web cam, and a large cardboard
box of pornographic DVDs. Authorities said Krein had 4,000 to
5,000 DVDs, including volumes on "brother-sister"
incest and "barely legal" females.Krein's parents, Kaye
and Gerald Krein, Sr., own the house and are living there.

Caleb said investigators are
looking into Valentine's Day suicides that have occurred since
2000. Any suicides committed Monday will be investigated
as well to see if they are connected to this case.

Deputies also have been
inundated with 911 calls from people around the country who have
loved ones missing, concerned that they might be trying to join
Krein. Caleb said national and international attention about the
suicide party plans have aided investigators. "This is one
of the few times the media has helped us out," he said.

Since Krein's arrest, Evinger
has appeared on several CNN news broadcasts, NBC's "Today,
Weekend Edition" and ABC's "Good Morning America."
The story has landed in newspapers from New York City and
Stockholm, Sweden, to Moscow, Russia, and Toronto.

After a weekend of breaking news
about the case, Valentine's Day was quiet at the mobile home on
Madison. Across the street, an unmarked sheriff's rig sat in the
parking lot of Rick's Smoke Shop as deputies took turns watching
for any party goers. None showed up.

Trisha Vilhauser, manager at
Rick's, had a front row seat of the stakeout from her store
window. The only excitement she saw happened about 10:30 a.m.,
when a SUV with three people pulled up to the house for a visit.
Deputies swarmed in, but no arrests were made. The SUV then left
the scene.

Aside from that it was, for the
deputies, a day of watching and waiting. And for the neighbors,
some of whom say they will continue to watch.

"A lot of people are
outraged it was in our neighborhood," Vilhauser said.

Transcript
details suicide solicitation

A Klamath Falls man
accused of planning a Valentine's Day suicide party pleads not
guilty

Friday, February 18, 2005

BETH QUINN
The Oregonian

KLAMATH FALLS -- His screen name was
Suicideparty2005, and on Jan. 19 he was trolling the Internet in
search of Valentines who wanted to die.

He asked a Canadian woman with
the screen name "hapieluv" if she wanted to hang
herself or hold his hand while she died. He told her about
another woman who was bringing her children to a suicide pact
party he was arranging.

"Do you want to hwelp (sic)
kill them?" he wrote in an instant message conversation
filled with misspellings.

A transcript of the chilling
exchange was part of the evidence Klamath County sheriff's
detectives used to obtain a search warrant for the home of
26-year-old Gerald Krein Jr. Krein was arraigned Thursday on one
count of solicitation to murder and four counts of solicitation
to manslaughter for allegedly planning the Valentine's Day
suicide party.

He pleaded not guilty to all of
the charges before Klamath County Circuit Judge Marci Adkisson.
He was unshaven and his dark hair disheveled and he wore an
orange jail-issue shirt as he appeared in court via video. He
didn't speak but nodded only slightly in response to questions
from the judge and his attorney.

Krein is being held in isolation
on $100,000 bail at the Klamath County Jail until his next court
appearance March 22. By then, Klamath County District Attorney Ed
Caleb said, prosecutors hope to determine whether Krein's party
was a macabre fantasy or a real plan. "Aside from the
(instant messages) there wasn't any overt act on his part, so it
boils down to his intent," Caleb said. "I think
everybody in America wants to know his intent."

But Klamath County officials
didn't have time to explore Krein's intent when they got the
anonymous tip Jan. 19 that 32 people had signed up to die at the
double-wide manufactured home where Krein lived with his parents
on the outskirts of Klamath Falls.

Deputies went to the home to
talk to Krein twice on Feb. 7. He shouted obscenities at them and
destroyed his Web cam in front of them before his mother
intervened and refused to allow detectives to talk to him alone,
according to the search warrant affidavit. Sheriff's officials
arrested him two days later after searching the home and finding
three computer hard drives, 138 pornographic DVDs, a camcorder
and four VHS tapes.

"There's been talk that
this might have been a flight of fancy on his part, but as law
enforcement you can't take that risk because if you're wrong,
people die," Caleb said. "We're past the Valentine
deadline, and now it's time to step back."

Klamath County investigators so
far have identified five women -- from Portland, Missouri,
Georgia, Virginia and a suburb of Toronto -- who said they'd been
in touch with Krein about the Valentine's Day party. Deputies
watched his parents' home Monday but said no one arrived for the
suicide pact.

Krein's court-appointed defense
attorney, Eve Merritt, said she probably will request a
psychological evaluation of her client. If Merritt shares any
findings of a psychological evaluation with prosecutors, they
would have an easier time figuring out what kind of plea bargain
to offer Krein, Caleb said.

"For us, with just about
every case we look at how the public can be protected from this
type of situation. Does that mean prison? Does that mean
probation?" he said. "And we probably won't know that
until we know more about him."

Group suicides arranged on the
Internet have occurred in Japan, where in 2003 a total of 34
people killed themselves in 12 incidents, according to the
Japanese national police. Just Wednesday, Japanese police
prevented four people from carrying out a planned group suicide
in Osaka after one of them backed out and tipped police. Similar
group suicides have also been reported in Korea, Hong Kong and
Guam.

Authorities said Krein's
Valentine's party wasn't the first group suicide he'd discussed
on the Internet. Investigators said he was involved in similar
Internet discussions when he lived in Texas in 2000 and
Sacramento in 2003.

In September, Klamath Falls city
police talked to Krein at his cousin's house, where he was
living, after hearing from a Missouri woman that he was suicidal
and might be trying to find others to join him. Krein told police
then that he wasn't suicidal, didn't know the Missouri woman and
believed his Internet account had been accessed by someone else.

CYBER
AGE: Dark side of digital age
BY ND BATRA

The Statesmen

February 23, 2005

What would you do if you found
someone shouting: Everythings horrible, I want to
die. Who will die with me? Thats how Reuters read the
message in a Japanese Internet chatroom after four people varying
in age from 19 to 30 were found to have committed suicide in a
car parked on a riverbank in Hokkaido island in northern Japan
last Thursday. In the digital age, you can google-froogle
anything from sushi kits to death kits, and so easily that
Internet pioneers might wonder what they had wrought. Of course
inventors cannot control whether people would mess up with their
inventions or use them to enhance the quality of life.

In 1973 when two young computer
scientists, Vinton G Cerf and Robert E Kahn, came up with the
revolutionary idea of making different isolated computers talk to
each other through a common language  Transmission Control
Protocol/ Internet Protocol  they did not foresee the whole
new world that would eventually open up. Of course there were
many more people who made the Internet possible, which
eventually, looking at the bright side, made Bangalore, for
example, become a global outsourcing hub, among other things.
Cerf and Kahn did not anticipate the Internet to become such a
driving force for good  and evil  in our lives.
E-trading, e-pornography, e-surveillance, e-death and who knows
what else is in store for us!

Welcome to the digital age,
which makes networking and sharing inevitable. For example, you
might wonder how a 26-year-old man, Gerald Krein from Klamath
Falls, Oregon, narrowly failed in enticing 32 women in chatrooms
to commit a mass suicide on Valentines Day.

The common theme is that
these were women who were vulnerable, who were depressed. He
invited them to engage in certain sexual acts with him  and
they were to hang themselves naked from a beam in his
house, Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger said. Had Krein
succeeded, he might have used his Webcam to netcast the event
 32 women hanging naked by a roof beam. Sexual asphyxiation
is a most extreme form of sexual act and in a land of extremes,
of death by choice  Oregon has been toying with the idea of
physician assisted suicide solution for terminal patients 
it would have probably created a stir; and then been shrugged off
as a bizarre event after the media had milked it dry.

A Canadian woman, probably a
prospect for after life, who saw the message entitled Suicide
Ideology in a chatroom and learned to her horror that another
chatroom woman intended to kill not only herself but also her two
children, promptly informed the police. Depressed women have been
known to kill their children. At least 31 women had agreed to
participate in the mass suicide, Krein told police investigators
upon his arrest. Chatroom records show that Krein had been
networking with women to solicit suicide since 2000. It is
difficult to say at this stage of investigation how successful he
has been. Nor do we know what was driving these people to commit
a group suicide rather than doing it alone. Getting out of deep
depression through extreme sex, consummated finally with
collective suicide by hanging: if thats a probable
explanation, then one might also understand why some people blow
themselves up in their zealous commitment to jihad, which without
networking and sharing wouldnt be so blindingly enticing.
Dying alone is terrible. Dying becomes easier when people die
together. The Internet provides togetherness to faceless
strangers.

Group suicide of strangers who
meet on the Net isnt an infrequent occurrence in Japan
where hara-kiri has been an ancient ritual. In Japanese
chatrooms, bulletin boards and suicide-related websites, people
come together to talk about not how best to escape from their
suicidal fantasies but how to execute them  sealing
themselves in a coal-burning room and dying of carbon monoxide
poisoning; in cars parked in remote mountain places; overdosing
on camera; jumping together from high-rise buildings. Though some
succeed, others end up with terrible injuries and life-long
misery. Yukio Saito, a Methodist minister, who founded and
oversees a suicide hotline, Phone of Life, made a very insightful
remark to Reuters: The idea of dying together is somehow
reassuring. Dying alone is lonely and takes more courage. The way
these suicides are carried out is very sensational for the media,
and very suggestive for people who may be thinking of taking
their lives.

Think of Jim Jones of the
Peoples Temple, the cult leader who led 913 followers to a
mass suicide death pact in 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana. Had Rev.
Jones had a website, let us say, Your Guide to Death is
Beautiful, with a seductive young woman giving step by step
instructions and the precise time from here to thereafter, he
might have attracted millions of people to an unheard of mass
suicide. You could imagine what a charismatic jihadi leader might
do in future when he wraps up mass suicide bombings with a noble
religious cause.

THERE WERE 39 VICTIMS IN
THE HEAVEN'S GATE MASS SUICIDE IN MARCH 1997. HAD KREIN'S PLANNED
SUICIDE PARTY TAKEN PLACE, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN
38 VICTIMS (ASSUMING KREIN WOULD HAVE ALSO PARTICIPATED)

EPPING,
NEW HAMPSHIRE: TONYA NEIHART A POSSIBLE VICTIM??

Mother
drowns daughter, hangs herself, authorities say

Associated Press

February 14, 2005 - Valentine's
Day

EPPING, N.H. -- An Epping woman
who apparently was depressed drowned her daughter before
committing suicide by hanging herself, authorities said Monday.
The terse announcement of the autopsy results for Tonya Neihart,
32, and Alexa Neihart, 6, made no mention of possible motive.

"Alexa was drowned in the
bathtub and ... Tonya went downstairs and hanged herself in the
garage," Assistant Attorney General Karen Huntress told
reporters. She said the mother left no suicide note, but
investigators "found there was some depression involved
here." Huntress did not elaborate. The bodies were found by
an unidentified family member Sunday night.

Neihart and her daughter moved
to the Plumer Court housing complex in November from Nottingham,
said condo association treasurer Geri Fichera, who recalled that
Neihart said she was separated from her husband and that she and
her daughter would be living alone.

Tonya Neihart's brother and
stepfather died in 2001 and her mother died in 2004, according to
obituaries in the Portsmouth Herald. The obituaries also named a
sister, Rolinda Desjardins of Portsmouth, a husband, Jonathan
Neihart of Nottingham.

Calls to the home of a Jonathan
Neihart in Nottingham were not answered Monday.

Tonya Neihart's cousin, Gregory
Locke of Kittery, Maine, told The Associated Press the couple had
a history of splitting up and reconciling and that Tonya Neihart
had told her husband in August she planned to leave him.
"The day of (her mother's) funeral, she told him she was
divorcing him. There was a big scene," Locke said.

Records at Derry Family Court
show the couple's divorce became final in September.

Tonya Neihart worked for an
airline in Manchester, her cousin said.

Neighbor Angela Garniss said she
was "horrified that it happens next to you house. Just can't
believe something like that can happen next to where you live and
when a little child is involved it's pretty upsetting."

EPPING,
N.H. -- The New Hampshire Attorney General's Office is continuing
to investigate why an Epping mother killed her young daughter
before taking her own life Monday.

Tonya Neihart, 32, drowned her
6-year-old daughter, Alexa, in a bathtub in their condominium
before hanging herself in her garage.

Investigators have said that
Neihart was depressed but have released few other details about
the investigation.

Forensic psychiatrist David
Schopick said that although the circumstances surrounding the
tragedy are unknown to the public, based on what authorities have
revealed, he believes Neihart may have suffered from profound
mental health disorders that go beyond depression.

"This is so unusual, one
would have to question if she was thinking in a bizarre or
psychotic or delusional matter about what would happen to her
child after she committed suicide," Schopick said.

At the Nottingham school where
Alexa attended kindergarten, school officials sent a letter home
to parents with suggestions of how to talk to their children
about the tragedy. The school nurse and guidance counselor were
in the kindergarten class Tuesday when school began in case
children wanted to talk.

Neihart was recently divorced,
and in the past several years, she had lost her mother, father,
stepfather and brother. "This is almost certainly a primary
suicide but with some consideration or thoughts about what would
happen with the child after she was gone," Schopick said.

Schopick reiterated that simply
because someone is going through a difficult divorce or is
suffering from depression, it does not mean he or she would
automatically act out in this manner. But he said he believes the
lesson for those who are having difficulty in their everyday
lives is to seek help.

THE ACTUAL TRUTH MAY BE
WITHHELD FROM THE MEDIA IF A CONNECTION DOES EXIST BETWEEN
NEIHART AND THE INTERNET PLANNED VALENTINE'S DAY SUICIDE PACT -
SHE DID FIT THE VICTIM PROFILE ON A NUMBER OF POINTS: DEPRESSION,
VULNERABILITY, AGE GROUP, BEING
WILLING TO KILL HER CHILD AND THEN COMMIT SUICIDE BY HANGING (AS
SEVERAL WOMEN ALLEGEDLY AGREED) AND CARRYING IT OUT ON THE 14TH.

SPY ROCK,
CALIFORNIA: HELEN MARIE ANOTHER POSSIBLE VICTIM??

Missing
woman found dead; Wake planned today, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

By Claudia Reed/Staff Writer
The Willits News

February 22, 2005

Helen Marie,
44, a former Willits resident missing since Thursday, February
10, was found dead about a mile from her Spy Rock residence on
February 18.

Reportedly, she took her own
life, choosing to die by hanging. A suicide note was found at the
site. "We're comfortable it was a self-induced type of
situation," reported Chief Deputy Coroner Kurt Smallcomb.

Marie's body was found by a
federal animal trapper who was checking his traps in the area,
one of which had caught the black-and-brown dog that accompanied
Marie on her last walk. The dog was released with minor leg
injuries and taken to a veterinarian.

Apparently Marie had been
despondent for some time. Reportedly, she previously mentioned
suicide to two friends asking one "Why don't I just kill
myself?" and asking another, "What's the karma of
suicide?"

Presumably, she took her own
life shortly after leaving home, although she had carried along a
backpack containing money and a cell phone, as though she might
change her mind. "Sometimes they change their minds,"
said Sheriff's Capt. Kevin Broin of people with suicidal
impulses. "Or maybe she didn't plan it until she went for a
walk and decided enough's enough. It's really a sad situation,
sad for the people left behind."

Broin said there have been 25
suicides in the county over the past year. According to the 2004
County Health Profiles released by the state Department of Health
Services, Mendocino is in the highest third of the state's 58
counties when it comes to deaths from both suicide and homicide.

A wake will be held for Helen
Marie 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at the Purple Thistle restaurant on
Main Street, where she was formerly employed.

AGAIN,
THE ACTUAL TRUTH MAY HAVE BEEN WITHHELD FROM THE MEDIA IF A
CONNECTION DOES EXIST BETWEEN MARIE AND THE INTERNET-PLANNED
VALENTINE'S DAY SUICIDE PACT. THE TIMING OF HER DISAPPEARANCE
COINCIDED WITH FEBRUARY 10, THE FIRST
WIDELY-REPORTED DAY OF THE FEBRUARY 9 ARREST OF KREIN.

HOW MANY WOMEN IN TOUCH
WITH KREIN WHO PLANNED ON COMMITTING SUICIDE ON FEBRUARY 14 WENT
FORWARD WITH THEIR OWN HANGING PLANS ONCE THEY SAW OR READ THAT
HE HAD BEEN ARRESTED? OF THOSE WHO DID, HOW MANY
BOTHERED TO WAIT UNTIL THE 14TH? INDEED, HOW
MANY SUICIDAL WOMEN VISITED THE "SUICIDE PARTY 2005"CHATROOM BESIDES THE 32 WHO AGREED TO TRAVEL TO KLAMATH
FALLS ON VALENTINE'S DAY?

HELEN MARIE DID FIT THE
VICTIM PROFILE ON A NUMBER OF POINTS: DEPRESSION,
VULNERABILITY, AGE GROUP, AND
BEING WILLING TO COMMIT SUICIDE BY HANGING.

FEBRUARY
WAS A CRUEL MONTH

Manningtree
woman sent suicide text notes before hanging self

Evening Gazette

Wednesday 23rd Feb 2005

A Manningtree woman sent text
messages to family members before she hanged herself in woodland,
an inquest has heard.

They sparked off a search which
led officers to Rougham, near Bury St Edmunds, where the body of
Julie Bolt was found.

The location had been identified
using mobile phone technology, said Greater Suffolk Coroner Dr
Peter Dean.

In a statement, her brother
Andrew said after being born in Singapore and later moving to the
UK, his sister had always appeared fit and well and enjoyed
travel.

The coroner said because of the
notes and letters left by Miss Bolt it was clear she knew what
she was doing. He recorded that she took her own life.

ALL OVER
THE WORLD: GERALD KREIN HAD A POTENTIAL GLOBAL FOLLOWING

UK web
address link to online suicide plot

Tony Allen-Mills and Gareth
Walsh
The Sunday Times - Britain

February 13, 2005

AN internet surfer accused of planning a
bizarre Valentines Day mass suicide used a British
chat room to recruit willing victims. Gerald Krein, a
jobless drifter from Oregon in America, used an online message
with the heading Suicide party you want to join it to
direct would-be suicides to a British web address. His plot was
partially foiled last week when he was arrested after a tip-off
from a Canadian woman who had been following his scheme on the
web.

Oregon police are searching for
at least 32 people across America  and possibly others in
Britain  who may have been planning to kill themselves at a
set time tomorrow.

In his original internet posting
Krein, 26, invited members of a chat group devoted to suicide
to come to the party to die. Signing himself Jerry,
Krein said the party would be in Klamath Falls, the Oregon town
where he lived with his parents in a mobile home.

He directed respondents
to a suicide party groupwith a
wanadoo.co.uk net address. He also used an
American address with the provider Yahoo.

Police were tipped off when a
woman watching a Yahoo website read that another woman was
planning to kill her two children before committing suicide.
Kreins computers were seized and police are trying to
identify the owners of at least 32 e-mail addresses who had
responded to the Yahoo site.

We could just be
scratching the surface since the internet is worldwide,
said Tim Evinger, the Klamath county sheriff.

IT IS
ENTIRELY POSSIBLE THAT THE FOLLOWING HIGH-PROFILE CASE COULD BE
CONNECTED. THE YOUNG WOMAN FOUND HANGED HAD BEEN VISITING A
NUMBER OF GOTHIC WEB SITES AND GAY AND SUICIDE CHATROOMS SINCE
DECEMBER 2004. IT IS ALSO POSSIBLE SHE FOUND KREIN'S CHATROOM IN
FEBRUARY -- AND WAS INFLUENCED BY IT AND THE MEDIA COVERAGE.
CONTINUED EXPOSURE TO SIMILAR CHATROOMS MAY HAVE HAD AN
ACCUMULATIVE EFFECT, MAKING TV REALITY STAR CARINA STEPHENSONA DELAYED VICTIM OF THE VALENTINE'S DAY
SUICIDE PARTY.

Missing
teen e-mail search

Sheffield Today

21 May 2005

DETECTIVES have seized a
computer belonging to a missing South Yorkshire teenager who
vanished from home two weeks before she was due to star in a
reality TV show. They are trawling through Carina Stephenson's
e-mails and checking out Internet sites she has visited looking
for clues to help them work out what may have happened to her.

Her desperate family and friends
have searched the areas surrounding her Branton home, near
Doncaster, and have put posters up hoping somebody will recognise
the 17-year-old. The former Armthorpe School pupil was reported
missing by her frantic family on Thursday after going for a bike
ride at 10am but failing to return home later that day.

She and the rest of her family
are due to appear in a six-part series to be screened on the
History Channel from June 6 showing how they coped with spending
four months in Australia living as the early settlers did at the
turn of the 19th century. They answered a newspaper advert
looking for families to volunteers for the experiment and beat
off competition from around the world.

Corina, her estate manager dad
John, 43, her teaching assistant mum Liz, 38 and her 13-year-old
brother Tyler went to New South Wales last August. They joined
families from Ireland and Australia, Indigenous Australians, and
nine male and female 'convicts' in a fledgling community set
during the period 1800-1815. The series is a fly-on-the-wall
documentary aimed at showing how a modern day family copes with
the lifestyle people led 200 years ago ...

"Since we got back she has
spent all her time in her room on the computer on MSN, internet
chatrooms and gothic websites," said dad John. He said the
police had examined the content of some of her chatroom
conversations and had taken the computer away for a more detailed
examination.

Mum Liz, who said she has been
unable to sleep since her daughter vanished, said she had
recently told her family she was a lesbian. "Perhaps she was
using the chatrooms to meet people, we just don't know, it's one
of the possibilities the police are looking into," she said
...

When she was last seen Carina
was riding a Zombie BMX. She was wearing black, baggy knee-length
combat trousers covered in zips and chains, knee-length stripey
socks with white trainers.

Teen
reality TV show star found dead in apparent suicide

Herald Sun 24 May 05

A TEENAGER whose
family was filmed for a reality-TV series in Australia has been
found dead two weeks before it was to go to air in Britain.
Police are trying to discover whether the apparent suicide of
17-year-old Carina Stephenson was connected to the program.

Her body was
found on Saturday in woods close to her home in Branton, near
Doncaster, two days after she said she was going on a bike ride.

The teenager,
her parents and younger brother spent four months in the
Australian bush recreating the tough lives of early-19th-century
colonial settlers for The Colony, a six-part series which aired
in Australia on SBS in January-February and is due to air in
Britain soon.

Since returning
home five months ago Ms Stephenson is said to have spent much of
her time on internet chatroom sites.

The reality show
 a joint production between SBS, Irish network RTE and The
History Channel in Britain  was said to have been a
successful experience for the teenager, who was taking a year off
before her final exams.

Producers of the
program will consult her family before deciding whether to air
the show as planned. Ms Stephenson, her father John, 43, an
estate manager, her mother Liz, 38, a teaching assistant, and
13-year-old brother Tyler lived like the early settlers in
Australia, working farmland without modern equipment. The
Stephensons beat competition from all over the world after
answering a newspaper advertisement.

Her mother Liz
said Carina had been troubled by her sexuality and recently
revealed to her family that she was gay.

Detectives have
seized her computer and examined her chatroom conversations. SBS
issued a statement yesterday saying it was "shocked and
saddened" to learn of the death.

Adelaide woman
Shelly Williams, who was a participant in the show, was also
shocked. "She was without doubt the funniest person
there," she said. "She seemed to be the most with-it
person. She just seemed to have it all together. It's been a
while, six months or so, (since filming) so I guess anything
could have happened."

Teen
reality television star was found hanged

Yorkshire Post
Today

26 May 2005

A SOUTH YORKSHIRE
teenager who was due to star in a reality television show was
found hanged from a tree and had left two notes, an inquest was
told.

Carina Louise
Stephenson went missing last Thursday from her home in Branton,
near Doncaster, and was found by police two days later.

At the opening
of an inquest yesterday, it was revealed that the 17-year-old was
found hanged.

Her father, John
Stephenson, confirmed to coroner Stanley Hooper two notes found
at the scene were in her handwriting.

The 43-year-old
estate manager said: "She was a beautiful girl and we never
expected this. I hope she is happy where she is."

The Doncaster
hearing was told Miss Stephenson became a Goth at 15 and had been
spending a lot of time on the Internet and less time with
relatives and friends.

Last August she
spent four months in Australia with her parents and 13-year-old
brother as part of a series called Colony about how settlers
lived in the early 19th century. The History Channel programme
was due to be aired in two weeks' time but has been postponed
until September.

Miss
Stephenson's mother, Liz Taylor, told the inquest her daughter
enjoyed the experience. She said: "We all loved it and
Carina was always enthusiastic."

She last saw her
daughter on Wednesday, May 18 when she left the family home in
Gatewood Lane, Branton, saying she was going for a bicycle ride
to see a friend and shouted: "I'll see you later". Miss
Stephenson's body was found in a clearing in Kilham Woods, off
Kilham Lane.

The inquest was
adjourned.

THE ACTUAL STATE OF THE
BODY, STATE OF DRESS OR UNDRESS,
WAS NEVER REPORTED. LACK OF ADDITIONAL FORENSIC DATA MAKES
LINKAGE PROBLEMATIC. HOWEVER, LINKAGE TO THE
DARK SIDE OF THE INTERNET GOING BACK TO DECEMBER 2004,
AND THUS FEBRUARY 2005, CAN BE MADE. EXPOSURE TO
AND INFLUENCE FROM KREIN'S SUICIDE CHATROOM AROUND VALENTINE'S
DAY 2005 CANNOT BE RULED OUT.

UPDATE:
DETAILS ARE EMERGING REGARDING A DIRECT LINK BETWEEN THE TEEN
REALITY SHOW STAR'S SUICIDE AND INTERNET CHAT ROOMS

A DEVASTATED mother whose
daughter hanged herself after trawling the internet for suicide
websites has urged other teens to talk about their problems
rather than taking their own lives.

Liz Stephenson, who pleaded for
teenagers to "reach out for people to talk to face to
face", spoke out after an inquest into the death of her
daughter Carina, who hanged herself in a South Yorkshire wood.

Carina, 17, who had just taken
part in filming a reality TV show in Australia with her family,
had shown no signs she was planning to take her life and there
had been no cross words between the family on the day she left
home.

But after her death it was found
she had been planning to kill herself for at least a month by
searching the worldwide web for information on suicide.

A Doncaster inquest heard Carina
was a "well balanced, normal, happy and healthy girl"
who had not been bullied at school.

The Stephenson family had
returned to their home in Branton, Doncaster after four months
filming The Colony in the Australian Outback, for the History
Channel, an experience Carina had enjoyed.

Carina went missing on May 18
this year after riding off on her bike. Recording a verdict that
Carina killed herself, Doncaster coroner Stanley Hooper said it
was not his responsibility to ask why she did it.

SUICIDE
PLAN OF TRAGIC CARINA -- girl spent time on websites concerned
with suicide and death by asphyxiation

The Doncaster 17-year-old who
hanged herself after filming a series in Australia had been
trawling the internet looking for suicide websites for weeks, it
was revealed.

Her body was found near her home
at Branton last May, with items including a diagram showing how
to tie knots close by.

But an inquest in Doncaster
yesterday was told she was a "well balanced, normal, happy
and healthy girl" who had not been bullied at Armthorpe
School, where her mother Liz was also a learning support
assistant.

Last year the Stephenson family,
of Gatewood Lane, spent four months filming The Colony, in the
Australian Outback, for the History Channel - an experience she
enjoyed.

Carina, the elder child, went
missing on May 18 after riding off on her bike. A police search
ended three days later when she was found hanging from a tree in
woods off Kilham Lane. Next to her body were found two suicide
notes, a tape measure and a diagram of how to tie a knot.

When she left home she had given
her mum no indication of being unhappy, but checks on the
computer in Carina's bedroom showed she had spent time on
websites concerned with suicide and death by asphyxiation, and
had e-mailed a suicide note a month before she carried out the
act.

She also posted a profile on a
website saying her favourite place was a wood near her home.

"It would appear the
suicide had been well planned," said the investigating
officer, Pc Brandon Brown ...

Reality
star's suicide tragedy

Preston Today News

28 July 2005

The parents of a teenage reality
TV star, who killed herself after getting tips from a suicide
chatroom, today backed the Stop the Pedlars of Death campaign.

Carina Stephenson, 17, killed
herself shortly after returning home from Australia where the
history documentary The Colony was filmed.

Today her devastated parents
John, 43, and Liz, 38, who were also on the programme, said they
backed the Evening Post's Stop the Pedlars of Death campaign,
which is putting pressure on the government and Internet
watchdogs to take action against suicide chatrooms and websites.

Mum Liz said: "We support
the Pedlars of Death campaign."

It is the first time they have
opened up to a newspaper since the tragedy.

Carina, her parents and younger brother
Tyler, 13, joined other families on a film set in Australia to
live as a community would have done in the period 1800 to 1815.

An inquest heard that on her
return, Carina, from Branton in Doncaster, South Yorkshire,
became withdrawn and started to spend a lot of time on the
computer. Weeks before her death she told her family she was gay.

Later, after police investigated
her computer, they discovered she had accessed a site that showed
how to commit suicide by asphyxiation, and she had posted to the
site saying her favourite place was some woods near her home.

She went missing on May 18 after
setting off on a three-mile bicycle ride to a friend's house, but
she never arrived. Three days later police found her hanged in
the woods near her home. Her bike and rucksack were found nearby
with two suicide notes and a diagram of how to tie a knot.

The History Channel postponed
the series until September as a mark of respect for Carina ...

Mother's
Web warning after suicide

Thursday, September 8, 2005
Posted: 1332 GMT (2132 HKT)

LONDON, England -- The mother of
a teenage girl who hanged herself after looking at suicide Web
sites has warned of the dangers they pose.

Carina Stephenson, 17, was found
hanged in woods near her home in the village of Branton, near
Doncaster in northern England, on May 21 this year.

Before her death she spent four
months filming a reality TV show in the Australian outback with
her family. The program, called "The Colony," is
scheduled to be shown on The History Channel from Sunday.

Carina's mother, Elizabeth
Taylor, said she believed her daughter would still be alive if
she had not had access to Web sites glorifying suicide. She told
Britain's ITV News: "It's horrendous. Some of the things on
there that I have logged on to -- I've had to walk away. I've
felt physically sick."

Earlier this year an inquest
heard how Carina was a "well-balanced, normal, happy and
healthy girl" who had not been bullied at school, according
to the UK's Press Association. Her headteacher described her as a
"gregarious, mature, personable and thoughtful"
teenager.

But a police officer said that
after Carina went missing her computer was checked, and it was
found that she had visited a number of suicide sites. He said a
suicide note was found in her e-mails. The court heard that two
suicide notes were found close to her body.

A coroner said Carina appeared
to have enjoyed her experience filming "The Colony."

The History Channel said the
show did not lead to the teenager's apparent suicide. "The
whole family came back from Australia nearly six months ago and
were very positive about the experience," a spokeswoman told
PA. "They had been living the life of a convict family,
along with families from Ireland and Australia, and were given a
certain amount of provisions to live on. If there had been any
upset or distress they could have left and gone home at any
point. It's not Big Brother."

My Girl
Would Be Alive Without Suicide Websites

Says
mother of 17-year-old Carina who hanged herself

Carina Stephenson spent hours on
the internet looking at the sick sites in the weeks before she
was found dead in woods.

Elizabeth Taylor said she
believed her 17-year-old daughter, who had just filmed a TV
reality series, would still be alive if she had not had access to
the sites.

The mum-of-two said: "It's
horrendous. Some of the things on there that I have logged on to
- I've had to walk away. I've felt physicallly sick."

She warned: "It is the type
of site and the type of information these sites are giving out,
methods on how to commit suicide. They gave her the tools. I am
just hoping that anybody who is feeling depressed - those who put
their emotions down on computer like this - can just try to reach
out to somebody face to face."

Carina had only just returned
from spending four months making TV show The Colony in the
Australian outback with her parents and brother Tyler, 13, when
she killed herself. She had also opened up to her parents she was
gay. When Carina went missing last May police checked her
computer. They found she had logged on to several websites linked
to suicide.

She also visited a site which
explained how to commit suicide by asphyxiation. She had posted
on the site her favourite place was woods near home in Branton,
South Yorks.

When her body was found there on
May 21 there was a diagram explaining how to tie a knot. A
suicide note was discovered in her emails and two close to her
body.

An inquest heard how Carina was
a "well balanced, normal, happy and healthy girl".

A TEENAGER who took her life
after viewing internet suicide websites had secretly removed
computer controls which should have stopped her accessing
potentially dangerous material, the Yorkshire Post has learned.

Carina Stephenson used her
knowledge of computers to override the controls in the program
designed to give parents control over what could be obtained from
the internet. Instead, she installed her own replacement program
which allowed her to view unrestricted a range of websites
offering information about suicide.

She used the details she
gathered from one site to plan her death in Doncaster earlier
this year, prompting a campaign for a legal clampdown to bar
access to such sites from computers in this country.

The ease with which the
17-year-old was able to override the controls meant to keep her
safe demonstrates the difficulty faced by society in keeping
youngsters safe from illicit material on the web.

Her parents, John Stephenson and
Liz Taylor, believed Carina was able to view only innocent
material because they had bought a computer which allowed them to
set parental restrictions to censor what could be viewed. It was
only after her death that they discovered she had the expertise
to override the program controls.

Her mother has now launched a
campaign, backed by the Yorkshire Post, to stop such sites. She
said: "We put the parental controls on but kids have ways
around these things. They are taught from an early age at school
how to work them. Whatever controls were on, she has deactivated
them and reinstalled her own."

Because domestic controls could
be deactivated, she believes the answer is to make internet
service providers answerable for the access they allow. "My
daughter typed in 'How to kill myself' and went off and searched
for all the ways she could do it. Everyone knows stuff like this
should not be published and these sort of providers have to take
responsibility.

"The method Carina used
came off the internet. It was followed very, very precisely.
Without that it would have been impossible for her to have known
how to do it. If she had gone to the library asking for that sort
of information she wouldn't have got it and there is no reason
why the internet should be any different."

Ms Taylor, 38, describes herself
as "just a mum" but has taken on the huge task of
single-handedly trying to achieve a change in the law which would
protect children from that type of material. "I don't intend
to let this drop, I have to make it happen so that my life counts
for something more. I have taken on responsibility for this
because I want to protect people from this, from the pain and
heartache," she said.

Carina was found hanged in woods
near the family's home in the village of Branton earlier this
year. The family had recently returned from Australia where it
had taken part in reality TV show Colony, which is currently
being screened. Her death was confirmed as suicide at an inquest
but relatives only became aware of Carina's fascination with
taking her life as the computer was examined afterwards.

One interim measure Ms Taylor is
suggesting is to make internet service providers legally obliged
to send users regular statements, detailing which websites have
been visited from their account.

The Internet Service Providers
Association (ISPA) insist its members act in the same way as the
postal service, delivering information rather than publishing it.
It operates a "notice and take down" procedure to
remove illegal material if it is made aware of it but states:
"ISPA firmly believes ISPs should not have the power of
judge and jury over the legality, suitability and appropriateness
of the content that is contained on their servers."

MOTHER:
SHUT EVIL SITES ON SUICIDE

Mirror.co.uk

11 October 2005

THE mother of a teenager who
took her own life after logging on to suicide websites backed the
Mirror's campaign yesterday for an internet clampdown. Liz
Taylor's daughter, Carina Stephenson, 17, hanged herself. She had
read tips on the sick sites on how to commit suicide.

She said: "While I thought
my daughter was tucked up in bed, she was reading about death on
the internet."

Yesterday, we revealed how Chris
Aston, 25, and Maria Williams, 42, killed themselves in Britain's
first internet suicide pact. They are thought to have met through
a chatroom on the Alternative Suicide Holiday (ASH) website.

Liz, who had taken part in a
reality TV show in Australia with her family shortly before
Carina killed herself, called for a crackdown on the sites. She
said: "I thank the Mirror for investigating the ASH site
which I believe, among others, my daughter viewed. The Government
needs to act."

Liz has set up a petition on
www.i-standardpetition.org calling for a change in the law to
make it more difficult to access suicide websites. Health
Minister Rosie Winterton said: "I, along with my colleagues
in Government, am doing everything in my power to make these
sites hard to access and to protect the most vulnerable
people."

A Google spokesman said:
"If we are notified by the authorities of illegal content in
our index, we will remove the web pages in question."

ULTIMATELY,
IT WAS WORSE THAN ANYONE COULD HAVE GUESSED. IN THE END, THE
TERRIBLE TRUTH IS FINALLY REVEALED. AS REPORTED BELOW, CARINA
STEPHENSON SOUGHT OUT THREE OTHER GIRLS ON THE INTERNET TO FORM A
SUICIDE PACT BY HANGING. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM. WHO
CAN SAY IN THE END IF SHE HAD NOT BEEN EXPOSED TO OR INSPIRED BY
GERALD KREIN'S CHATROOM??

A MOTHER has told how she blames herself
for her daughter's suicide, never realising how she was secretly
visiting horrific internet sites glorifying death.

Doncaster
teenager Carina Stephenson earlier this year hanged herself in
woodlands near her home at the age of just 17.

Now her mother
Elizabeth Taylor is calling for a ban on such sites.

Ms Taylor was
shocked to discover after her daughter's death that she had been
trawling sites on how to kill yourself and had even set up a
suicide pact with three other girls she had met in chatrooms.

She said:
"The pain I feel is unbelievable. I keep wondering how I
could have failed to see what was happening. "There is now a
huge hole in our lives that is impossible to fill. Sometimes I
wish Carina had been murdered, because then I would have someone
to blame."

Ms Taylor has
spoken about how her daughter spent a lot of time in suicide
chatrooms with a macabre obsession with death.

She was also
shocked to discover her deeply disturbed daughter had been self
harming for a number of years prior to her death. She said:
"I discovered to my horror that Carina was visiting internet
sites dedicated to death ..."

She wants them
banned, to save other teenagers.

ULTIMATELY,
THE INTERNET HAS BECOME A CAMERA BY WHICH HANGING SUICIDES ARE
BEING RECORDED FOR VIEWING AND AS A RECORD OF THE EVENT. NOTHING,
IT SEEMS, IS TOO SHOCKING OR TABOO ANYMORE.

Teenage
girl films her suicide

11/05/2006 22:20
- (SA)

Marlise
Scheepers, Beeld

Johannesburg -
Friends and relatives arrived in a state of shock at the
Emmerentia home to console the parents of a 15-year-old girl who
hanged herself on Wednesday and filmed her suicide.

The girl used a
dog leash to hang herself from a security gate on Wednesday
afternoon while her mother was at home.

The police found
a digital camera where she hanged herself and it is now in their
possession.

Police
superintendent Chris Wilken said the girl's room looked out on
the garden around the house.

''The security
gate from which she hanged herself is in front of a sliding door
opening to the garden,'' said Wilken on Thursday.

The girl
apparently told her mother she was going to lie down on the bed
in her room. Her father was at a cafe nearby.

First
filmed suicide

On his return,
he and his wife found their daughter's body in her room.

The family was
too shocked and traumatised to speak about the suicide on
Thursday.

It is not clear
how the camera was positioned to film the suicide.

Pretoria
forensic criminologist Dr Pixie du Toit, who is doing research
into teenage suicides, said it was the first time she'd
experienced one where the youngster had filmed the deed.

''It's the first
time I've heard of this. It might be associated with new
technology - instead of a letter, using a camera to give a
message. Suicide has a contagious element and the case worries me
personally because similar ones may start cropping up."

Usually
are planned in advance

''The incident
is particularly unusual because filming the suicide has an
element of violence which does not ordinarily occur among teenage
girls who commit suicide.''

Du Toit said
suicides were planned for a long period and did not have only a
single cause.

Film-suicide
girl had cult ties

Hanged
girl: Shocking twist, Teenage girl films her
suicide

14/05/2006 22:40
- (SA)

Pieter Jordaan

Johannesburg - A
teenage girl from Johannesburg who filmed her own suicide last
week apparently was involved with a pagan cult and had earlier
mentioned her thoughts about suicide on an internet website.

The body of
Aimee de la Harpe, 15, was found by her stepfather in their house
on Wednesday afternoon. She had hanged herself from a security
gate with a dog leash.

Superintendent
Chris Wilken confirmed that police were investigating images of
the scene in a camera. No suicide note was found.

Aimee regularly
discussed her depression with visitors to a blog on the website
www.benrik.co.uk.

She made her
final posting about two days before her death. On the blog, she
told about her biological father's suicide a few years ago, her
poor self-image and depression, her visits and strange obsession
with cemeteries, as well as wild drinking parties with friends.

"My
self-image is at a low since my grandmother told me that my
friends had left me because I'm a drunk junkie whore," she
wrote in her penultimate posting.

Suicide
'is not selfish'

She also wrote
that she was wondering whether it was better to wait for a
natural death, or to die before something bad happened to you.

"Is suicide
brave? In some way, I suppose it is.

"It's the
knowledge that you are entering a dark place and you are
withdrawing yourself in advance from a situation you cannot
handle.

"I have
never considered it to be selfish," she wrote.

An informed
source said on Sunday that Aimee had regular contact with a pagan
cult on the internet. She apparently also met them personally and
allegedly also practised self-mutilation.

A friend, known
only as Daniel, stated on the website on Friday that media
reports revealing Aimee's postings were "sick".

"I'll soon
ask that her account on the website be closed. How can we leave
Aimee's blogs open to attacks like these?"

Dr Pixie du
Toit, a forensic criminologist investigating teen suicides, said
Aimee's reaching out to strangers on the internet and possibly
also cults, indicated continuous rejection and "tremendous
psychological pain".

"She
probably felt that people close to her didn't realise her need
and wanted to convey a clear message with her death (and the
video recording of it).

School friends
described Aimee to Du Toit as a loner, "artistic and
eccentric".